SEPA for corporations

Choosing the right path to compliance

In a matter of months, all existing direct debit and credit transfer schemes within the eurozone will be replaced under the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) initiative. Corporations doing business within the eurozone face a mandatory deadline of February 1, 2014 to migrate to the new SEPA payment schemes.

Regardless of the size of your business, if you operate within the eurozone, you need to act now. Failure to comply by the deadline will result in the following:

  • Your customers will not be able to pay you by direct debit
  • You will not be able to make payments by credit transfer
  • You will incur fines
  • You will lose business
  • Your competitors will gain a competitive advantage

Options for corporations

The critical question is how are you going to adapt your business to SEPA requirements by the February 1 deadline? Common approaches include the following:

  • Enterprise-wide payment transformation: Understanding the opportunities SEPA presents, some corporations are implementing transformational payment projects in response. However, even those with the best planned projects are now realizing they are running the risk of not meeting the SEPA deadline. For these corporations, a short-term, outsourced SEPA service can provide the answer and ensure business as usual come February.
  • ERP upgrades: Other corporations have decided to simply upgrade their current ERP systems to address SEPA. However, this option presents challenges in several areas, including local country data integration, integration with SEPA’s Unique Mandate Reference, and management of SEPA BIC and IBAN data. For these companies, a one-time SEPA data conversion project by which they can upgrade all ERP data formats for SEPA compliance will help to ensure their upgrade success.
  • SEPA as a service: Many corporations are outsourcing the management of their entire SEPA direct debit and credit transfer processes through a SEPA as a service delivery model.

What CGI offers

No matter which path to compliance you choose, CGI offers a complete suite of services to ensure your SEPA readiness, including the following:

  • Full SEPA mandate management
  • One-time legacy migration
  • Direct debit conversion and formatting
  • Credit transfer conversion and formatting
  • Scanning, archiving and high-volume printing
  • Payment hub (connectivity to banks for routing and validating transactions)
  • Consulting
    • Online SEPA readiness questionnaire
    • Guidance on SEPA rule books and local country requirements
    • Business and technical requirements assessment
    • Full-impact analysis report
    • Design of SEPA operating model with a clear set of implementation milestones
    • Data checking and cleansing
    • Managed testing services

The value we deliver

CGI’s SEPA services provide our clients with the following competitive advantages:

  • Fast track jumpstart for late starting SEPA programs
  • Data hygiene through conversion and validation checks
  • Reduced need for IT resources
  • Reduced capital outlay through transactional pricing (no hardware or software licensing required)
  • Technology “agnostic” answer to SEPA
  • Reduced risks
  • On-time, on-budget, high quality delivery from a company offering true scalability and high-grade security
  • Support in understanding and meeting complex local migration requirements

Why CGI?

Having supported the European Payments Council and Euro Banking Association in the development of SEPA (in fact, we helped to create SEPA’s rule books), our SEPA experts understand the issues at hand and are able to guide corporations in navigating the myriad of changes that SEPA requires.

Using our proven methodologies and tools, we can speed up your SEPA readiness efforts, thus minimizing the risk of non-compliance and enabling you to take full advantage of SEPA.

With decades of payments experience, we are unrivalled when it comes to helping corporations meet the challenges and opportunities of SEPA.